Rick Murphy

At the Caravelle, in the shadow of Disneyland, singer Rick Murphy's head almost touches the ceiling, a problem no one else has in this smoky nightclub. To many, the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Irish-American from San Diego might seem out of place at a club he calls the Copacabana of Southeast Asian entertainment.

At the Caravelle, in the shadow of Disneyland, singer Rick Murphy's head almost touches the ceiling, a problem no one else has in this smoky nightclub. To many, the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Irish-American from San Diego might seem out of place at a club he calls the Copacabana of Southeast Asian entertainment.

Joan Murphy did not hesitate when she saw a coyote with her neighbor's cat in its jaws. She chased the coyote down the street during pre-dawn hours last Friday, forcing it to abandon its prey. "I just started to scream at him. I figured I could scare him," said Murphy, the empathetic owner of two cats she keeps indoors at night in her University Park neighborhood.

I was not a hockey fan. I try not to be a fan of anything. But I flipped the dial and stumbled onto the end of the Kings' incredible Game 5 loss to Toronto in overtime. All of those shots and only one score. The game seemed similar to basketball, but invented instead by a Naismith of the '60s while on acid and played by guys on amphetamines, while carrying sticks and crashing into one another at breakneck speed. Soon I was on the edge of my chair, alone in an empty office, screaming at the Kings' shots, cringing at Toronto's, especially that heartbreaking last one. How could I possibly be exhilarated by a sport I do not understand?

Moorpark College and College of the Canyons have met three times this season and on each occasion the outcome has been decided by two points. Saturday night at Canyons, the Cougars held off a late Moorpark rally to defeat the Raiders, 81-79, in a Western State Conference game. The win avenged two earlier losses to Moorpark. "It must have been their turn to win one of those," Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist said.

Trong Minh, who arrived in the United States three months after the fall of Saigon in 1975, gestured toward the open restaurant door looking out onto bustling Little Saigon and began speaking rapidly in Vietnamese. "He says Little Saigon was once a deserted area but the Vietnamese refugees built it up to this magnificent, very impressive business district in a few years," said Rick Murphy, translating for his friend.

Trong Minh, who arrived in the United States three months after the fall of Saigon in 1975, gestured toward an open restaurant door looking out onto bustling Little Saigon and began speaking rapidly in Vietnamese. "He says Little Saigon was once a deserted area but the Vietnamese refugees built it up to this magnificent, very impressive business district in a few years," Rick Murphy said, translating for his friend.

Oh, the indignities a raisin suffers. Crammed behind the banana chips at the salad bar. Shoved beneath the dried cranberries in the supermarket. Plumped to a puffy mush and plopped in bread pudding as an afterthought. And the humiliation! Folks thinking raisins grow on trees. Or worse, dismissing them as mutant prunes. Even asking for cinnamon rolls without them. But mourn not for the raisin. At least on this weekend, in this town, it's a star.

Dalena's ancestors are Scotch-Irish. Her hair is blond, her eyes blue. She was born in Indiana and grew up in Florida--a long way from Southeast Asia. She didn't utter a word of Vietnamese until three years ago, just before she decided to debut at a nightclub in Anaheim, singing Vietnamese songs with incredible clarity for a Westerner.

On the same morning the Orange County Fire Authority and Children's Hospital of Orange County announced a campaign to prevent pool drownings, one child died in an Anaheim pool and two more were injured--one critically--after climbing into a backyard spa in Fullerton. "When we were notified, I just felt sick," Fire Authority Capt. Scott Brown said of the Thursday morning accidents. "This should be a wake-up call to the community. Pools and children are a deadly combination."

Four years ago, Rick Murphy moved into a quiet hillside neighborhood with just one drawback: a Superfund site with a dozen pits of petroleum sludge just over his back fence. It gave off a "rotting odor," Murphy said, a "heavy, thick, oily, sludgy kind of smell." But last spring, the air began to sweeten. Now Murphy and his neighbors literally are breathing easier.